Arabella and the Battle of Venus

by David D. Levine

  * * *

  That afternoon, Arabella was shifting some scenery to hide from view a stack of panniers which would be used in the escape when Captain Singh approached her. “Three hours to curtain,” he told her.

  “Thank you. Would you please assist me in this?”

  He did so, with strength and grace, and after they finished—panting in the heat of the late afternoon—he glanced about, saw that they were momentarily alone, and murmured low, “A word, if I may?”

  They ducked behind the scenery they had just moved into place, finding themselves in cluttered shade, and sat upon one of the panniers. “My dear Arabella,” he said, taking her hand and speaking uncommonly quietly. His long, strong fingers trembled slightly. “I know that I have not been the best of husbands to you, these past weeks and months.”

  “You have done your best, under the very difficult circumstances.” She lowered her voice still further. “Besides, you and I both know that you are, in fact, no husband at all.”

  He shook his head. “I have kept secrets, been cold and distant, and failed to grant you the love and respect due to you—due to your pretended position, if nothing else. And for this I apologize.” He took a breath and closed his eyes. “It is only that … for my entire career as captain, loyalty to Company and Crown, and the safety of my crew, have come before any thing else, and this habit has been difficult for me to break.” He opened his eyes again, and took her other hand. “But we may…” He blinked rapidly several times. “We may not survive this day, and I wanted you to know that my feelings toward you are very strong, very strong indeed.”

  Arabella’s heart beat low and hard, and her mouth suddenly felt dry. “As are mine toward you.”

  “I thank you for that assurance.”

  She extracted her hands from his grasp and laid them against his warm brown cheeks. “A kiss for luck?”

  “For luck,” he said.

  But the kiss he delivered to her was far from a chaste good-luck charm.

  * * *

  Seven o’clock. Arabella peeked out between the curtains—two stretches of sailcloth salvaged from captured ships, perhaps including Diana and Touchstone—and saw that, though the performance was not scheduled to begin until eight, the audience of prisoners had already begun to filter in, taking the best places on the long logs laid out across the clearing as seating. In the center of the front row, four ornate chairs, dragged down from the manoir, were reserved for Napoleon, Marie Louise, Fulton, and Fouché. Napoleon’s, of course, had a high back; this would obstruct the view for those seated behind him, but Arabella supposed that was entirely what one should expect from the Great Tyrant.

  She twitched the curtains shut and turned around, beholding a scene of nearly complete chaos. Watson’s dress was on entirely backward; Quinn had broken a string on his violin and was casting desperately about for a replacement; Lady Corey, who had suffered a sudden attack of stage-fright as soon as the audience had begun to arrive, stood pale and rigid with her costume only half-arranged; and Richardson and Stross were arguing strenuously—though in hushed voices—over whether the painted canvas representing Duke Orsino’s palace should be placed stage left or stage right. Far upstage, Fox and Gowse were frantically shoving a heavy, lumpy sack behind a piece of scenery.

  But, still, she told herself, the truly important things were well in hand. Three duffel-bags full of pistols, swords, and boarding-axes lay safely hidden beneath the stage platform, ready to be brought out and carried into the swamp when the time came. Other duffels of necessary equipment awaited in the wings. All the officers had by now been brought into the conspiracy and knew their parts in the escape; the captains of the divisions were keenly aware that action was in the offing, and though they knew not what it would be, they stood on high alert, ready to pass the word to their men at a moment’s notice. Even the ordinary airmen, at least the more attentive of them, knew that something was afoot.

  All she had to do was to survive the performance itself, she thought, and all would be well. Or, at least, once the final curtain fell they would all be in the midst of action, and at that point events would take whatever turn they would, without any further help from her.

  At least her part in this farce would be discharged.

  She clapped her hands. “Places, please!” she called. “Places! One hour to curtain!”

  Stross and Richardson left off their whispered argument and looked at her for a moment, then returned to their debate even more vigorously. No one else paid any attention at all.

  “Act well your part,” Arabella muttered to herself, then hurried to help Watson turn his dress around.

  * * *

  Arabella was still rushing about, doing her best to make sure every thing was in place for the play to begin, when a distinct change in the sound of the audience came to her ears: a sudden rise in the susurration of the crowd, followed by mutters and gasps, followed by astonished silence punctuated with occasional growls and shouted commands in French.

  In the midst of that noise one word was clearly audible again and again: Napoleon.

  “The emperor has arrived,” she muttered to Fox, who happened to be nearby.

  “May God have mercy on us all.”

  A moment later the strains of the overture could be heard from the other side of the curtain, indicating that the curtain was just about to rise. “What!” she cried aloud. It was easily twenty minutes early. Well, no help for it now. “Curtain!” she told all the players, dashing from one side of the stage to the other and whispering it to each in turn. “Curtain in five!”

  Somehow the players managed to get off the stage and arrange themselves for their entrances before the curtains were pulled aside by a pair of midshipmen. The audience applauded lustily, whistling and hooting, then fell into expectant silence.

  Captain Singh, playing Duke Orsino, entered, accompanied by his second mate and the musicians. Quinn, she could plainly hear, had not managed to find a replacement string for his violin and was gamely attempting to continue with three. It was not the worst part of the sound.

  The captain stopped, commanding the stage with his presence, and looked out over the audience. Arabella, following his gaze, noted that it paused only briefly as it passed across Napoleon and his party. The emperor, for his part, leaned on one elbow as though he would really rather be elsewhere. Beside him Marie Louise sat straight, politely attentive, as did Fulton; but Fouché’s eyes flicked all about, scrutinizing every thing in sight except the play before him.

  Captain Singh drew himself up, took a breath, and paused.

  The pause continued.

  And continued.

  Arabella realized that her captain—the brave, resourceful, intelligent Captain Singh, leader of men and inventor of the finest automaton in human history—had forgotten his very first line.

  “If music be the food of love,” she hissed.

  “If music be the food of love, play on!” the captain immediately repeated, in a voice pitched to carry across a heaving deck in the midst of the worst storm. “Give me excess of it! That, surfeiting! The appetite may sicken! And so die!”

  He might be overplaying it a bit, she thought, but at least the audience would be able to hear him. Unlike Lady Corey.

  And so it went, until the captain uttered the rhyming couplet that ended the scene and exited, to a smattering of applause.

  Arabella, too, applauded from her place in the wings, pleased that the first scene had gone off almost without impediment, while Fox—in this scene playing, appropriately enough, the minor role of a captain—entered, and waited.

  With a start she realized he was waiting for her. It was the shipwreck scene already.

  “What country, friend, is this?” she said as she rushed onstage.

  * * *

  And so it went, this madcap, ribald tale of shipwreck, romance, disguise, deception, and mistaken identity. Arabella soon found herself wearing trousers again—and what a relief that was!—playing the r
ole of the girl Viola, disguised in turn as the young man Cesario.

  Whenever she was on stage, she did her best to observe Fouché as closely as possible without seeming to do so. It was not easy—the man’s eyes went everywhere and seemed as keen as a hawk’s. There seemed to be no chance that the escaping prisoners might avoid his gaze, or that of the numerous and disciplined soldiers who ringed the audience with bayonets fixed. But Captain Singh had said that Lefevre, more than pleased with the plunder contract’s thirty thousand livres, had promised an effective distraction at the key moment.

  The play, under-rehearsed at best, did not go well. Lines were forgotten, set-pieces fell over, curtains closed too early or failed to close at all. But the audience was greatly entertained, laughing and clapping at every mistake. Even Napoleon emerged from his pensive mood, sat up, and applauded with a genuine smile upon his face. With every fresh blunder his merriment grew, and he clapped and whistled lustily with unfeigned, rustic glee.

  Even the worst problem of the night was not a complete disaster. It occurred late in the play, in Act IV Scene II, when Watson tripped on his gown while exiting the scene. He fell offstage with a crash and a cry, and Arabella immediately rushed to him. “Are you injured?” she whispered.

  “No,” he replied through clenched teeth, clutching his shoulder.

  Captain Singh, just arrived, looked on the prostrate young man with a skeptical eye. “We will let the surgeon be the judge of that,” he said, and set off to fetch Withers from the audience.

  “I am most terribly sorry,” Watson said, wincing.

  “No matter,” Arabella said. “It was your last scene.”

  Watson seemed not to be put at ease by this reassurance. Nonetheless, Arabella left him then, as she was required to help Captain Fox with a costume change before the next scene began.

  * * *

  From that point the play continued to its uproarious end without further serious incident. Viola’s twin brother Sebastian appeared on the scene, and the siblings were so alike in appearance—this was a bit of theatrical make-believe, as Fox and Arabella looked not at all similar—that Countess Olivia, thinking Sebastian was “Cesario,” ran off and married him. The revelation of the offstage marriage of the characters played by Fox and Lady Corey was greeted by many boisterous snickers from the assembled airmen, and the two cast rather embarrassed glances at each other. Then, after the twins’ true identities and sexes were revealed, Duke Orsino and Viola, too, became engaged to be married.

  “Here is my hand,” Captain Singh as Orsino said to Arabella as Viola—now revealed as a girl, though still in trousers. “You shall from this time be your master’s mistress.” This drew a rousing reaction of “aww”s and whistles from the audience.

  But as they were about to kiss—a pretended kiss, to be sure, but still it had gladdened Arabella’s heart every time they practiced it in rehearsal—the play was suddenly interrupted by the sound of cannon. Nine shots boomed out from the gun on the manoir lawn, and every person on stage and in the audience stopped and looked around.

  “Neuf évadés!” came the cry from all around. Nine escapees! It was an unprecedented number.

  Arabella looked into Captain Singh’s eyes, terrified. Had some one jumped the gun, started the escape early? Or was this a coincidence, some other group of escapees on the same evening? But, after the initial shock from the noise and the interruption, the captain’s face relaxed into a quiet grin. “Lefevre,” he whispered, and Arabella immediately understood.

  Shouts soon came from the darkness beyond the lights of their improvised theatre: Lefevre’s troops, demanding assistance in recapturing the escapees. Fouché abandoned his seat and rushed to the back of the house, calling for his men to follow. Only a few of Fouché’s troops remained.

  “There are, in fact, no escapees for them to pursue,” the captain murmured in Arabella’s ear. “It will take them some time to realize this.”

  “We must make as much use of this opportunity as we can,” Arabella whispered back, then stepped away from him to downstage center, facing the muttering and fractious crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she called, raising her hands, and repeated the call until the audience quieted somewhat. “We apologize for this interruption, but as the play is nearly complete, we will proceed directly to the curtain call.”

  The players all looked at each other—surprise, concern, disappointment, and excitement all mingled together in their faces—then began shuffling into a line at the front of the stage, while those not involved in the current scene began moving in from the wings. Other officers, not members of the cast, made ready to pass the word to the captains of their divisions: the mass break would occur the moment the curtain closed after the cast’s third and final bow.

  But before they could take even their first bow, a voice rang out from the crowd: “Non!”

  It was a strong and strident voice.

  It was a voice accustomed to command, and to being obeyed.

  It was a voice in Corsican-accented French.

  Arabella stood in the middle of the line, holding Captain Singh by the left hand and Captain Fox by the right … frozen at the beginning of her bow, mouth agape, stunned into silence.

  “Non, non, non!” came the voice again—clearly Napoleon’s. “Le spectacle doit continuer!”

  Arabella’s eyes focused on Napoleon, standing before his high-backed chair. Grinning broadly, he rattled off a long proclamation in highly colloquial French, the gist of which seemed to Arabella to be “I hate plays, but your stupidities are amusing.” Then he waved a hand: “Continuer! Continuer!”

  Only a half-dozen of Fouché’s troops remained in the theatre, but they raised their rifles to a ready position. Every one seemed aimed directly between Arabella’s eyes.

  The spectacle, apparently, must continue.

  Arabella exchanged a panicked glance with Captain Singh, then bowed to the inevitable. “Very well,” she announced to the audience with as much of a smile as she could muster. “By imperial command, we shall continue with the performance.”

  Awkwardly the cast rearranged themselves on the stage as they had been before the cannon spoke. Arabella remained downstage center, her back to the audience, until she saw that they were properly positioned, then spoke low to Captain Singh: “Take it from ‘Here is my hand.’” Then she stepped into position beside him and did her best to put herself back in character.

  “Here is my hand,” Captain Singh said again. “You shall from this time be your master’s mistress.” Again they embraced; again they pretended to kiss. This time there was no reaction from the audience.

  Lady Corey was late with her following line: “A sister! you are she!”

  Richardson entered now, and he and Lady Corey played out their final scene together … as quickly as possible, and with many nervous glances to the tall chair at front row center.

  Arabella, too, kept glancing anxiously at the audience from where she stood upstage, gripping her captain’s hand painfully. But she was not as concerned with Napoleon himself—he continued to laugh uproariously at every rushed, bungled line—as with the darkness beyond the last row. How long would it take for Fouché’s men to discover that there were, in fact, no escapees, and return to their emperor’s side?

  After endless minutes only Brindle, playing the fool Feste and wearing a costume modeled on Touchstone’s figurehead, remained alone on stage to sing the play’s finale. It was a lovely song, delivered in a remarkably strong high clear voice, and the whole audience, even Napoleon, plainly enjoyed it tremendously. But it seemed to Arabella to go on and on, and from her position in the wings she waited, heart pounding, to see whether the song should conclude or Fouché’s soldiers return first. She clutched the strap of the satchel containing her reticule, a change of clothes, and other necessities, which she now carried slung over one shoulder, ready to run with it as soon as the opportunity presented. She still wore her “Cesario” trousers.

  “But that’s al
l one, our play is done,” Brindle concluded at long last. “And we’ll strive to please you every day.” He bowed, to tumultuous applause.

  Finally—finally!—the cast could take their curtain calls, and begin the escape. They all stepped to the edge of the stage, and with a genuine smile Arabella gripped her fellow players’ hands and took her bows. Once they bowed, and again.

  As they straightened from the second bow, Arabella glanced left and right. The midshipmen were poised to whisk the curtains closed. The word had already been passed to the men in the audience: when the curtain closed after the third curtain call, run for the swamp!

  This was it: the final curtain call. Arabella led the third bow, the whole line of players bending low along with her.

  But before she could rise from her bow, a familiar Corsican-accented voice called again from the audience: “Bravo! Bravo! Encore! Encore!”

  Arabella glanced up from where she stood bent. Napoleon was actually standing on his chair, hammering his hands together with great vigor and showing no sign of stopping. Marie Louise was standing as well, applauding with a more ladylike enthusiasm, as was Fulton. The airmen to either side of them were also continuing to applaud, glancing nervously at the emperor and the armed soldiers all around.

  She looked left and right. Both midshipmen were giving her questioning looks.

  Napoleon continued to applaud energetically.

  Arabella caught the midshipmen’s eyes and shook her head fractionally, then straightened and immediately bowed again. The line of performers followed her lead—raggedly, but they followed nonetheless.

  The curtains did not close.

  Napoleon kept applauding.

  So did the airmen. They seemed terrified to stop.

  Four bows. Five. Six. Seven. The applause went on and on.

  Eight bows. Nine. Ten.

  As Arabella straightened from her tenth bow, she saw the thing that she had been awaiting with anxiety and dread: uniformed soldiers reappearing at the back of the audience. Many of them.